Gordon Brown hails bishops in march against world poverty

Hundreds of religious leaders marched through London to demand action on global poverty, in an event hailed by Gordon Brown as one of the greatest public demonstrations of faith the city had ever seen.

Led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the 600 Anglican bishops attending the Lambeth Conference walked together with their spouses and other faith leaders down Whitehall, past Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament and across the Thames in a bid to remind world leaders of their commitment to halving world poverty by 2015.

Dressed in their ceremonial robes, they gathered in the courtyard of Dr Rowan Williams' historic London residence, Lambeth Palace, where their efforts were praised by the Prime Minister in a passionate speech about the need of rich countries to help the poor.

Mr Brown told the faith leaders: "This has been one of the greatest public demonstrations of faith that this great city has ever seen.

"You have sent a symbol, a very clear message with rising force that poverty can be eradicated, poverty must be eradicated and if we all work together for change poverty will be eradicated."

He urged the religious leaders to tell their governments to make new commitments to improving education, health care and agricultural production, amid fears some of the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000 will not be met this century or next.

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"The poor of the world have been patient but 100 years is too long to wait for justice and that is why we must act now," he said.

Mr Brown said an emergency session of the United Nations on the targets, to be held in September, will be a chance for the world to "redeem the pledges that have been promised", and said only "the will to act" is now missing because of progress in technology and science.

In a reference to a quote made by a 19th century minister, which has since been repeated by Martin Luther King Jr and Barack Obama, Mr Brown added: "Although the arc of the moral universe is long, it does bend towards justice."

His emotional speech was praised by Hellen Wangusa, the Anglican observer at the UN, who said: "If it was up to me to ordain you, I would have done so right now."

Mr Brown was presented with a letter by the archbishop which echoed his fears that the goals to tackle poverty would not be met.

Dr Williams wrote: "Because our faith challenges us to eradicate poverty, and not merely to reduce it, we should all be more alarmed that with the halfway mark to 2015 passed, it is clear that most of these achievable targets will not be met. The cause is not a lack of resources but a lack of global political will."